An Outcast; Or, Virtue and Faith

A bottle of wine, and the mild, persuasive manner of Mr. Snivel, so completely won over George's confidence, that, like one of that class always too ready to give out their hear...

"Having served well the offices of felons and impostors, Hag Zogbaum would instruct her girls in the mysteries of licentiousness. When they reached a certain age, their personal...

Night has thrown her mantle over the city. There is a great gathering of denizens at the house of Madame Flamingo. She has a _bal-masque_ to-night. Her door is beset with richly...

Tom Swiggs has enjoyed, to the evident satisfaction of his mother, a seven months' residence in the old prison. The very first families continue to pay their respects to the goo...

"Their tracts are so carefully got up. If my poor old negro property could only read--(Mrs. Swiggs pauses.) I was going to say--if it wasn't for the law (again she pauses), we c...

A pleasant passage of sixty hours, a good shaking up at the hands of that old tyrant, sea-sickness, and Lady Swiggs finds the steamer on which she took passage gliding majestica...

Our quaint old city has been in a disquiet mood for several weeks. Yellow fever has scourged us through the autumn, and we have again taken to scourging ourselves with secession...

You must know, reader, that King street is our Boulevard of fashion; and though not the handsomest street in the world, nor the widest, nor the best paved, nor the most celebrat...

Tom has passed a restless night in jail. He has dreamed of bottled snakes, with eyes wickedly glaring at him; of fiery-tailed serpents coiling all over him; of devils in shapes...

While Mrs. Swiggs is being entertained by Sister Scudder and her clerical friends in New York, Mr. Snivel is making good his demand on her property in Charleston. As the agent o...

Purged of all the ill-humors of her mind, Mrs. Swiggs finds herself, on the morning following the excellent little gathering at Sister Scudder's, restored to the happiest of tem...

Madame Montford, pale, thoughtful, and abstracted, sits musing in her parlor. "Between this hope and fear--this remorse of conscience, this struggle to overcome the suspicions o...

Madame Montford returns, unsuccessful, to her parlor. It is conscience that unlocks the guilty heart, that forces mortals to seek relief where there is no chance of finding it....

Reader! have you ever witnessed how cleverly one of our mob-politicians can, through the all-soothing medium of a mint-julep, transpose himself from a mass of passion and bad En...

Our very chivalric dealers in human merchandise, like philosophers and philanthropists, are composed merely of flesh and blood, while their theories are alike influenced by circ...

Pale and hesitating, Brother Spyke says: "I have no passion for delving into such places; and having seen enough for one night, am content to leave the search for this vile old...

June, July, and August are past away, and September, with all its autumnal beauties, ushers in, without bringing anything to lighten the cares of that girl whose father yet pine...

Disappointed, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his mission, the young man muses over the next best course to pursue. He has the inebriate's welfare at heart; he kno...

The two lone revellers remain at the pier-table, moody and hectic. Mr. Snivel drops into a sound sleep, his head resting on the marble. Weak-minded, jealous, contentious--with a...

The mansion of Madame Flamingo stands stately in Berresford street. An air of mystery hangs over it by day, and it is there young Charleston holds high carnival at night. It is...

The city clock strikes one as Mrs. Swiggs, nervous and weary, enters the House of the Foreign Missions. Into a comfortably-furnished room on the right, she is ushered by a man m...

While the scene we have related in the foregoing chapter was being enacted, there might be seen pacing the great colonnade of the Charleston hotel, the tall figure of a man wrap...

On taking leave of her father, Maria, her heart overburdened with grief, and her mind abstracted, turned towards the Battery, and continued, slowly and sadly, until she found he...

"Oh! George--George!" she whispers imploringly, as her eyes meet his; and turning upon the couch of her chamber, where he hath lain her, awakes to consciousness, and finds him w...

On the corner of Anthony street and the Points,[4] in New-York, there stands, like a grim savage, the house of the Nine Nations, a dingy wooden tenement, that for twenty years h...

"What could the woman mean, when on taking leave of me she said, 'you are far richer than me?'" questions Maria McArthur to herself, when, finding she is alone and homeless in t...

Mr. Fitzgerald sees that his last remark is having no very good effect on Madame Montford, and hastens to qualify, ere it overcome her. "That, I may say, Madame, was not the las...

Anna gives George Mullholland the letter of release, and on the succeeding morning he is seen entering at the iron gate of the wall that encloses the old prison. "Bread! give me...

While the earth of Potter's Field is closing over all that remains of Anna Bonard, Maria McArthur may be seen, snatching a moment of rest, as it were, seated under the shade of...

The morning following the events detailed in the foregoing chapter, finds the august Sleepyhorn seated on his judgment-seat. The clock strikes ten as he casts his heavy eyes ove...

It is night. King street seems in a melancholy mood, the blue arch of heaven is bespangled with twinkling stars, the moon has mounted her high throne, and her beams, like messen...

You must know that, notwithstanding our high state of civilization, we yet maintain in practice two of the most loathsome relics of barbarism--we lash helpless women, and we sco...

To bear up against the malice of inexorable enemies is at once the gift and the shield of a noble nature. And here it will be enough to say, that Maria bore the burden of her il...

Leaving for a time the scenes in the House of the Nine Nations, let us return to Charleston, that we may see how matters appertaining to this history are progressing. Mr. Snivel...

If, generous reader, you had lived in Charleston, we would take it for granted that you need no further enlightening on any of our very select societies, especially the St. Ceci...

Mr. McArthur has jogged on, in the good old way but his worldly store seems not to increase. The time, nevertheless, is arrived when he is expected to return the little amount b...

Mr. Soloman Snivel has effected a reconciliation between old Judge Sleepyhorn and the beautiful Anna Bonard, and he has flattered the weak-minded George Mullholland into a belie...

Maria McArthur having, by her womanly sympathy, awakened the generous impulses of Tom Swiggs, he is resolved they shall have a new channel for their action. Her kindness touched...

You know it is Bulwer who says, and says truly: "There is in calumny a rank poison that, even when the character throws off the slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the e...

A bright fire burned that night in Keepum's best parlor, furnished with all the luxuries modern taste could invent. Keepum, restless, paces the carpet, contemplating his own imp...

A few days have elapsed, Maria has just paid a visit to her father, still in prison, and may be seen looking in at Mr. Keepum's office, in Broad street. "I come not to ask a fav...

A very common story is this of Madame Flamingo's troubles. It has counterparts enough, and though they may be traced to a class of society less notorious than that with which sh...

Two months have passed since the events recorded in the preceding chapter. Tom has been arraigned before a jury of his peers, and honorably acquitted, although strong efforts we...

We come now to another stage of this history. Six months have glided into the past since the events recorded in the foregoing chapter. The political world of Charleston is resol...

On his return from the theatre, Mr. McArthur finds his daughter, Maria, waiting him in great anxiety. "Father, father!" she says, as he enters his little back parlor, "this is w...

Let us leave for a time the pursuit with which we concluded the foregoing chapter, and return to Charleston. It is the still hour of midnight. There has been a ball at the fashi...

Maria has passed a night of unhappiness. Hopes and fears are knelling in the morning, which brings nothing to relieve her anxiety for the absent one; and Mr. Snivel has taken th...

The clock has just struck twelve. Mr. Snivel and George, passing from the scenes of our last chapter, enter a Keno den,[5] situated on Meeting street. "You must get money, Georg...